A NEW season, a new show, and nearly a new company. Before the transfer window closed, Scottish Dance Theatre had to replace four out of its eight dancers. It is a compliment to Janet Smith’s transformation of the company that its members are so in demand. But it leaves her with no one who has been at SDT for longer than two years, which must present an artistic director with some serious challenges.

Gemma, Holly, Baptiste and Kevin. The four new dancers of Scottish Dance Theatre introduce themselves. Then the whole group come at the audience, grinning with youthful confidence. We lap them up. They sail smoothly through Revenge of the Impossible Things, a B-movie title for the latest 30-minute offering by New Art Club duo, Tom Roden and Pete Shenton. Like their previous work This Is Modern (a delightfully ticklish half-hour history of contemporary dance), Revenge is a scripted dance in which words romp around playful, quirky choreography, much to the audience's delight.

One of the best things Janet Smith ever did was to head north of the border. Under her artistic direction Scottish Dance Theatre has gone from strength to strength. This triple bill was a rich mix of styles, from the surrealism of Belgian Jan De Schynkel and the off-the-wall construction of Tom Roden and Pete Shenton (aka New Arts Club), to a gentle swipe at tartan tourism from Smith's own hand.

High Land investigated things Scottish, from cuddly Loch Ness monsters to Braveheart machismo. French dancer Baptiste Bourgougnon scored for the Auld Alliance with his deft mime skills, giving us an engaging and clever duo with a furry Nessie. Costumed in off-kilter kilts - leather and tartans wrapped askew by designer Phyllis Byrne - the dancers wheeled and leapt off and on to a low wall, presumably Hadrian's, to a collage of haunting Gaelic music.

Company that's on the edge of something big By THOM DIBDIN for The Scotsman

INVIGORATING and soothing by turns, Scottish Dance Theatre’s tour of their autumn programme has plenty to please even the most casual friend of contemporary dance.

Here is work which, at its best, takes the most abstract of the live arts and gives it a comprehendible twist. Without resorting to cliche or gimmick it not only attracts a large audience, but a young and appreciative one as well.

Opening the programme, choreographer Annabelle Bonnery’s On The Edge steps straight into a demonstration of why this is dance theatre, not merely dance. Yet the tale to tell is not a vast one and the result is not so much the epic fairy tale sweep of classical ballet, but a well-formed and neatly balanced short story.

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